Canadian ILWU president Rob Ashton is running for New Democratic Party leadership, arguing that the party has lost touch with its base. His campaign aims to put workers back in charge.
Jacobin spoke with Rob Ashton, a candidate for the leadership of Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP), about where the party — and the country’s politics more broadly — have gone wrong, and what he plans to do about it.
A veteran longshoreman, Rob Ashton is president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada, where he already presses elbows with power. But the kind of political competence he wields is qualitatively different from the polished insider class that dominates Parliament.
The Canadian legislature is disproportionately drawn from the backgrounds of law, business, and bureaucratic management — professions deeply embedded in the country’s elite strata. A Statistics Canada profile of legislators shows that the House of Commons looks less like the country and more like a boardroom. In this rarefied air, Ashton would be an outlier: someone who has spent decades on the docks and in union halls, listening to workers’ daily struggles.
- David Moscrop
You say you’re running because workers need a voice in Canada. What sets you apart from the other candidates for the NDP leadership? And from those you’d face across the aisle in Parliament?
- Rob Ashton
When it comes to the candidates that I’m running against, we all have our lanes, and we’re all very good in those lanes. But for me, I’ve been a longshoreman for thirty years and I’ve been a labor leader for the last twenty. I talk to workers almost every day, whether they’re members of my union, members of other unions, or workers that have yet to find a home in a union. And I’ve had those hard shop floor and water cooler conversations about not being able to afford food or housing for their families.
Take my youngest daughter. When I told her I was going to run for the NDP, she said, “You have to help out young people.” I asked what she meant and she said, “I can’t afford to move out of the house. It’s impossible.”
That’s why I’m running. Every time the Liberals or Conservatives win, they promise to make life better. “We’re going to make it more affordable.” Then, the next day, it’s back to business as usual — ruling for the rich and the powerful, while forgetting the everyday Canadians who built this country. And when I came to the realization that nothing’s going to change without somebody willing to put their neck on the line, I figured it’d best be me.
Fixing the Party
- David Moscrop
You’ve said the NDP is broken and needs to be fixed. How is it broken and how did it break?
- Rob Ashton
I think there’s been a lack of communication. When the party made the supply and confidence deal with the Liberals, we got three big wins for Canadians: Pharmacare, dental care, and anti-scab legislation. But we lost the election. Those were NDP ideas, ideas we’d been pushing for decades. And when they finally happened, the Liberals ate our lunch — they took all the credit.
We have to be able to figure out a way to communicate better. Somehow Canadians bought the Conservative line that a twenty-year career politician knows workers better than the workers’ party.
We have to fix that. My idea is, number one, you get somebody who comes from the rank and file to lead the party. And you rebuild communication from the ground up. Electoral district associations should be talking with their constituents — and those conversations should flow up and down the chain. No party leader can say that he or she or they know exactly what’s happening in, say, Mirabel, Québec, if they’re not actually hearing from the constituents of Mirabel, Québec.
- David Moscrop
How do you conceive of the categories of worker and working class? The NDP is meant to be a party of blue-collar workers, but that’s clearly no longer the full picture. Compounding the problem is the fact that wage workers are much more variegated than in the past. Does your definition of working class include service workers, teachers, public servants — people in jobs that require university degrees?
- Rob Ashton
Most definitely. When I talk about the working class, I talk about people who are not the rich and powerful. The working class are people who go to work every day as well as people who want to work but can’t find stable jobs or who have been pushed out of the workforce. This includes people who are marginalized, Indigenous people, LGBTQ+ members.
If you wake up in the morning and you don’t jump in a car that’s worth a million bucks, if your title isn’t CEO or CFO or something like that, you’re a member of the working class. If you’re a small business owner, you’re working class. That’s how I envision the working class. It’s an all-encompassing term that covers every rank-and-file Canadian.
- David Moscrop
Gaza is set to feature prominently in the leadership race. What should the NDP position be?
- Rob Ashton
I’m going to give one of the other candidates some props here. Heather McPherson has been speaking clearly about the situation in Gaza and Palestine, and I couldn’t honestly say anything better than what she’s been saying. She’s done a good job expressing the party’s position — and mine. I fully support her position on Gaza and Palestine.
A New Industrial Vision
- David Moscrop
Decades of deindustrialization have hit workers hard, particularly in cities and regions such as Hamilton, Windsor, and northern Vancouver Island. The NDP has, perhaps not surprisingly, sometimes lost support in these places while opposing certain extractive projects. How do you propose to rebuild Canada’s industrial base and create value-added jobs?
- Rob Ashton
We’ve been told it’s “cheaper” overseas — but that’s just code for paying workers less while CEOs take more. The fix is power: workers need a real seat in the boardroom, not just at the bargaining table.
We can change regulations to make sure Canadian companies and workers benefit. Ships operating in Canadian waterways should be built in Canadian shipyards, houses and hospitals should use Canadian materials, and mines here should purchase Canadian-made equipment.
If we rebuild our industries with workers at the table, we’ll create good jobs that last and an economy built by workers, for workers.
- David Moscrop
Many on the Canadian left, including Avi Lewis, oppose hydroelectric dams, nuclear power, and even the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) needed to deliver many advanced geothermal energy systems that will be required to deliver the clean transition. What do you have to say about such projects?
- Rob Ashton
I’m not an expert on every industry, but I know this: companies up and left, putting profits over people. We have the ability and expertise to build dams, nuclear plants, and geothermal projects that meet the highest standards and fully respect Indigenous rights, including free, prior, and informed consent. We have the ability to do it, so we should. We can power our future.
We also need to rebuild our value-added economy, engaging workers, protecting jobs, and ensuring trade and regulations benefit Canadians. We can make everything we need here at home and create jobs and strengthen our communities. We can pursue clean energy and big projects while protecting rights, the planet, and good jobs. That’s how we build a strong, fair economy for everyone. It’s not an either/or, we can do both — this is Canada.
No More Same Old
- David Moscrop
You don’t seem burdened by the brushed aluminum phoniness of media training. It’s easy to find clips of you talking about eating the rich and class war. You say you’ll speak the way you do at work — with color. Is that a deliberate choice? Did you ever consider giving into the Ottawa speak–style of talking about politics?
- Rob Ashton
It’s who I am. I’ve been a longshoreman for thirty years. I’m not going to change. My language will have to clean up a bit — I don’t want to be getting kicked out of the House of Commons every other day. So, I understand that I need to clean the language up and I will. But I’m not going to change who I am.
People deserve to know who they’re voting for. I’ll polish it up a bit when I have to, but I’m not becoming someone else. Like Popeye said, “I am what I am.”
- David Moscrop
To be honest with you, I was a little bit surprised at the energy and the attention your campaign got out of the gate. Were you surprised?
- Rob Ashton
I was hopeful, but yeah, I was surprised. I’m a forty-nine-year-old guy from British Columbia, a labor leader, sure, but who knew what would happen? People could have just said, “Nice looking mustache, now go sit in the corner.”
But maybe they felt something in what I was saying. I love this country and I love its people. And I’m sick and tired of politicians screwing over Canadians. Maybe that came through. I’m ready to lead this party — and to take the good, the bad, and the ugly that comes with being a federal political movement leader. Canadians deserve no less.
This post was originally published on Jacobin.